


Eyes of Fire

by DazzleYourMindsEye



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Character Study, One Shot, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Possible backstory, Speculation, cinder and ruby talk, just a short one-shot to help me break my writers block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DazzleYourMindsEye/pseuds/DazzleYourMindsEye
Summary: “Don’t act like you know me! Like you understand! I watched you, you know. Back at Beacon. So naive… You had everything. Friends, a sister that cared for you. Don’t act like you know what I’ve been through. Like you know why I did what I did.”Cinder and Ruby have a chance to talk.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Eyes of Fire

Cold. 

Empty.

_Wrong._

Cinder stared blankly at the walls of her cell. Cold steel surrounded her, only lit by the ambient light coming through the window - where the jagged dark purple landscape of Evernight had finally given way to flat ocean. The hum of the engines and the bangs of various strange noises as the beaten and battle scarred airship limped through the air, carrying them away from the darkness. Away from _her_.

Cinder clenched her remaining fist, reaching deep inside herself for something, _anything_ , any trace of that fire that had burned within for so long.

She opened her hand, willing a flame into existence.

_Nothing._

Not even a spark.

With a roar of rage she slammed her fist into the ground, pain shooting up her arm.

 _Her_ Maiden powers had been _**stolen**_ , ripped from her body along with the parasitic Grimm that had aided her in taking the power from Amber. She remembered Salem’s red eyes, looking down at her crumpled form with disgust. 

_You don’t deserve what I have given you. You have disappointed me for the last time._

The pain of Salem tearing the Grimm from her body had been almost too much, and Cinder had blacked out. When she woke, she found herself in the middle of a battle, a Mistral airship hovering overhead. Salem was no where to be seen, but Grimm were everywhere, along with huntsmen and huntresses. She was ignored by both parties, and Cinder dragged her weak form away from the fighting. There would be no point in joining the fight, on either side.

But she had been followed.

Her spiraling thoughts were interrupted when the door to the airship brig opened, and an all too familiar red cloaked figure stepped through, carrying something in her hands.

Cinder’s lip curled, and she scoffed. “Come to gloat?”

Ruby looked at her, frowning. “No.” 

She approached the bars and knelt down, sliding the object in her hands through a small slot. “Here.”

Cinder glanced at it and her eyebrows rose. “You’re feeding me?”

Ruby shrugged and crossed her arms. “It’s all we’ve got. Sorry.”

Cinder looked down at the pre-packed meal, the kind soldiers or huntsmen used on long trips. She glared at it, and cursed her sudden empty stomach. She turned her glare to the red-cloaked girl, who met her stare evenly with those eyes.

Those _**damned**_ silver eyes.

Ruby shrugged again, and turned back towards the open door back up to the upper decks.

Cinder wasn’t exactly sure what compelled her to do it. The nagging question burning in the back of her mind for hours, blurted out without a second thought.

“Why?”

The girl paused in the doorway.

“Why did you save my life?”

* * *

_Cinder limped along the jagged and sharp landscape of Evernight, sounds of the battle growing fainter behind her. She reached up and cradled the stump of her arm, the skin raw and blistered where the Parasite Grimm had eaten away at it. A rock caught the edge of her foot, causing her to stumble against a boulder. Her raw bruised skin scraped against the surface, and she winced. Cinder leaned heavily against the boulder and struggled to pull in wheezing breathes._

_“Cinder!”  
_

_A familiar voice from behind called out, and Cinder raised her head. There stood Ruby Rose, scythe unfolded and held at the ready. “Cinder! You can’t run anymore! Face me!”_

_An emotion suspiciously like fear churned in Cinder’s gut, and she snarled at the girl._

_She pushed away from the boulder and limped as fast as she could down the path. If she could just find somewhere to recover her strength…._

_A shot rang out and whistled over her head. A second one hit a rock to her right, scattering sharp shards._

_“Cinder! Stop!”  
_

_Blind fear and panic began to set in. Cinder limped faster, the urge to just **get away** growing stronger and stronger…_

_Until the ground suddenly disappeared from beneath her feet._

_The sudden drop drew a short scream from her throat, and her hand clawed at the cliff side in a panic - finally catching the edge._

_Hundreds of feet below bubbled a black pool, splashes reaching up almost like hands to drag her down into its depths. She could almost feel the pure **hunger** that rose off its surface like steam…_

_Cinder automatically tried to use her other arm to grab another ledge, but her stump only waved uselessly and her hand tightened as a reflex. And suddenly, Ruby stood above her - an unreadable expression on her face._

_Cinder had not begged for anything since she was a child, and she wasn’t about to start now. Especially not to **the girl**._

_But Gods she had witnessed herself the horrors that had been birthed from the pools of darkness, and the thought of being dragged down into those inky depths…._

_Ruby stared down at her and Cinder couldn’t look away from those silver eyes locked with her own. Ruby seemed to be searching for something…_

_A flicker, the smallest change in expression that Cinder would have missed if she didn’t know Ruby’s face, hadn’t obsessed over the girl during her time of healing at Salem’s palace._

_She heard the clatter of Crescent Rose being thrown aside, and a hand closed around her wrist._

_“Let go! I can pull you up!”  
_

_Pure adrenaline and instinct pushed aside the confusion and hostility, and Cinder let go._

* * *

Ruby stared at Cinder through the bars, as if taken aback by the question. 

“I - I don’t know.” Ruby moved further from the door, closing it behind her. “I guess… I don’t know, I saw something.”

“And what was that?” The anger and hostility had almost faded from Cinder’s voice, and she slumped against the wall, suddenly feeling exhausted and drained.

“I guess… I saw how afraid you were. The lamp showed us what those pools did to Salem, and I don’t think anyone would deserve that.” Ruby’s voice softened. “Not even you.”

“I wasn’t afraid.” Cinder snapped, but there was little bite to the statement. An automatic response, ingrained into her soul by endless repetition.

Ruby didn’t respond. But she did pull up a stool and sat down.

“What are you doing?” Cinder asked.

“I just wanted to talk. Maybe understand a few things.”

Cinder sneered. “Oh? You think we’re going have a little ‘girl talk’? That a little ‘inspirational speech’ will make me spill everything to you? You see what she did to me. I’ve been discarded. I don’t know anything about what Salem’s planning next.”

“That’s pretty obvious.”

Cinder flinched. “If you’re going to torture me I’d rather you’d just get on with it. Not that it would work. There’s nothing you can do to me that I haven’t already been through.”

Ruby frowned and tilted her head to the side. “We’re not going to torture you.” 

Cinder squinted suspiciously. “Oh? Then why have you locked me up in here? What do your little friends think of that?”

Ruby sighed. “We… we haven’t decided what to do yet. You’re not really a threat like this anymore.”

Cinder bristled and glared through the bars. “If you think I’m not a threat like this, then you’re even more foolish than I thought.” Cinder leaned back against the wall of her cell. “The last man who thought that is dead.”

Ruby didn’t say anything. She just shifted in her seat.

Cinder looked away from the girl. She noticed a small scratch on the wall and her eyes traced it.

Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was a deeply buried urge to be heard that she had thought long gone. Hell, maybe it was just a needed catharsis like lancing a boil. But Cinder started talking.

“I was born in a small village outside of Vacuo. My father was a tailor and my mother was a housewife. I was their seventh daughter. Unwanted, as my mother and sisters never let me forget.”

Her eyes followed the scratch to a small asymmetrical dent. “I was nothing more than an extra mouth to feed. I got everything last. Clothes, food, attention. Some nights I went to bed hungry because there was nothing left for me.”

Cinder reached out and traced the dent with her finger, feeling its shape.

“I was nine when my father died. Being outside the kingdom meant we were an easy target for bandit raids. After that, we had even less than nothing. My sisters started to marry off and leave. One even started tailoring like Father. But me? Mother came to me one night and told me she had sold me to a traveling merchant.”

Cinder laughed bitterly. “Sold me like a cow. I was ten years old.”

She heard the creak of the stool as Ruby shifted, but the girl still said nothing. 

“The merchant came the next day, and I never saw my family again after that. I was a slave, to be used and abused. I worked until my hands bled in his workshops. I cooked his meals and cleaned his house. My body was no longer my own.”

Cinder swiped a finger through the dirt in the corner of her cell. “My semblance came to me one night while staying in the deserts of Vacuo. I found that I could move the sand with my mind, and even heat it to make glass. I kept my discovery a secret, practicing only in the few moments I had to myself. When I was seventeen, something changed.”

Cinder paused here, finally looking up out the small window across from her cell. They had finally begun to pass over land, though she didn’t recognize it. She still refused to meet Ruby’s gaze she could feel burning into the side of her face.

“I don’t know how she found me. Or maybe she had been watching me for a long time. But I began to hear Salem’s voice in my dreams. She told me things, about the Maidens and the Gods. About untold power beyond my wildest dreams. And I listened.”

Cinder wrapped her arm around her midsection. “She promised me power, power over my tormentors, over a world that had discarded me like trash. That I would never feel helpless again.”

Cinder rubbed the dirt between her fingers “One night when cooking my master’s meal, I slipped glass shards into his food.” Her lip curled up in a cruel smile at the memory. “And I watched him choke on his own blood.”

She clenched her fist. “It was my first real taste of power. And it felt so good. I wanted more.”

Cinder finally looked up and met Ruby’s silver gaze. “I stole a horse and left. Guided by Salem, I found myself in Evernight. And I guess you know the rest.”

Ruby broke eye contact first, looking down at her boots with a frown.

Cinder slumped back against the wall. “So there. Now you know my sob story. Does that answer your questions?”

Ruby’s mouth tightened. “Yeah. I think it does. You wanted to lash out at a world that hurt you. To hurt it back. It’s a very human thing to do.”

Cinder sat back up, eyes blazing with fury. “Don’t act like you know me! Like you understand! I watched you, you know. Back at Beacon. So naive… You had everything. Friends, a sister that cared for you. Don’t act like you know what I’ve been through. Like you know why I did what I did.”

Ruby stood up from the stool and met Cinder’s furious gaze. “There’s more than one way to feel powerless, Cinder. Something you clearly don’t get.”

Cinder gritted her teeth and looked down at her clenched fist.

A beat of silence. A sigh. “We’re going to be landing soon. What’s going to happen after that is entirely up to you.”

Ruby’s footsteps faded as she walk away, and the dull thud of the door closing and locking made Cinder flinch.

She was alone.


End file.
